


you are a perpetual feeling

by alykapedia



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, YOI Sci-Fi Zine, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 13:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alykapedia/pseuds/alykapedia
Summary: "In a world full of temporary things, you are a perpetual feeling." - Sanober KhanThere is a rift inside Viktor, and much like the rift in the space-time continuum, it threatens to tear him apart.





	you are a perpetual feeling

**Author's Note:**

> It has been my immense pleasure to work for the Improbable Possiblities zine and I am now super excited to share my piece for it! I got the idea for this fic while binge-reading some Spirk fics and pickle p much enabled me to do it and screamed with me about it, so here we are!

**I**

 

Unlike the others, Viktor remembers.

Viktor remembers having a home, remembers his childhood bedroom and the powder-soft scent of his light blue sheets. He remembers the way the morning light streamed in through his windows, remembers the nest of robins by the window ledge, remembers how they woke him up every day, remembers complaining about it incessantly.

He remembers a woman, his mother perhaps, with the same long, silvery blonde hair and heart-shaped smile. He remembers the haunting strains of a song, a lullaby that never fails to bring tears to his eyes.

Viktor remembers  _ before _ and he has a feeling that he’s not supposed to.

Because Viktor’s only supposed to know about the  _ now _ , just like everyone else. He’s only supposed to know the Agency. They’re the ones who raised him, trained him, taught him all he knows, and allowed him to go to the far reaches of the universe—all of them—and see what lies beyond. They’re the ones who allowed him to keep Makka, even if she’s a bit strange and a little changed now—an aftereffect of being turned into an android.

Viktor should want for nothing.

But all Viktor really does is  _ want _ _. _

He wants a meaning to his existence that isn’t tied to the Agency, wants to know why he’s never known contentment or satisfaction and why every victory he achieves rings hollow. He wants a reason for why he’s here, wants to know why he was chosen, wants to know why he couldn’t just stay in his childhood bedroom with his powder-soft sheets where his mother sings him a lullaby each night.

Viktor wants to know whose hand he’s reaching out to in his dreams, wants to know their name, wants to know if they can fill the empty space inside his chest where a heart is supposed to beat.

There is a rift inside Viktor, and much like the rift in the space-time continuum, it threatens to tear him apart.

 

.

 

The rift in space-time has been there for as long as he can remember.

Situated just at the edge of A-426, it’s a great, big, ugly gash in the fabric of reality, tearing space and time asunder, encroaching upon the universe they swore to protect. They’ve lost more than a few stars to it, a handful of star systems, even an entire galaxy; all pulled in and swallowed up in the blink of an eye.

Despite all their efforts at trying to close it, all they’ve managed to do is perform stopgap measures, slow down its growth so they can have some more time to figure out the problem, solve the puzzle once and for all.

Viktor, who has spent more than two decades under the rift’s malevolent presence, doubts that they ever will.

 

.

 

Viktor comes across the anomaly completely by accident.

He’s idling his time away on the Chair, hooked up to the system—his mind open to the universe and the universe open to him—when he stumbles upon the mystifying existence that is Yuuri Katsuki.

Here is the single, most important truth that Viktor has ever learned:  _ everyone is made of star stuff _ . Distill any being into their most basic form and you’ll find the remnants of a star’s heart.

It’s why souls, being the most concentrated form of a person’s essence, shine. Some burn much more brightly than others, while some are dim, their light almost lost in the darkness of space. Viktor’s seen countless souls after a lifetime of watching the universe and its inhabitants, he should be more than used to seeing a soul that doesn’t quite fit the mold.

However, nothing could have possibly prepared him for Yuuri Katsuki’s soul.

Variations within a single soul is normal. An expected side-effect of the existence of multiple universes stretched along the space-time continuum is that people change. Now, this change can either be infinitesimal or it can be dire enough to warp a soul, causing it to lose some of its glimmer, some of its shine, which is normal and to be expected, because individuals tend to follow the shape of the universe they’re in.

Even the brightest souls have been touched by change, evidenced by a slight dimming in their light, and Viktor has never seen a soul that has remained constant and unchanged.

Until now, that is.

Yuuri Katsuki’s soul shines like the sun as seen from Earth, a 42-magnitude star that burns itself into Viktor’s retinas, warming him to his very bones. Viktor can’t believe he’s missed it for more than twenty years when it’s setting off all their detectors and alarms, and they blare in his ears now as he approaches Katsuki’s soul, marveling at its brightness and how it stays in the exact same spot, never once changing coordinates, as he phases through the universes it’s illuminating.

He's never found cause to believe in constants, but now that he’s looking at one, even Viktor can’t deny that Yuuri Katsuki seems to be a multi-universal constant that’s keeping the universes intact and the rift in space-time at bay.

All except one.

A-426 is dim. Katsuki’s soul, or whatever diminished version of it resides here, is but a flickering light, barely enough to light up the sensors that Viktor wears on his wrists.

“What makes this one so different?” Viktor asks aloud, one hand reaching up as if to touch Katsuki’s soul, fingertips hovering just above its dim glow. “What changed?”

He wants to do something, make it so that this soul fragment would shine as brightly as its brethren. He wants to fix it, soothe the pain it seems to emit, and save it from the rift that—

“Oof—!” Before Viktor can take another forward, he’s bowled out of the Chair by a big ball of fur. “Makka!” He scolds, the back of his neck stinging at the sudden disconnection. There’s a headache already threatening at the back of his head, but Viktor can’t stay mad at Makka for too long, especially when he’d been the one to train her to make sure he never stays too long connected to the collective consciousness. “I stayed too long inside, huh?” He asks, running his hands over Makka’s coat. “Sorry about that, girl.”

Makka woofs and licks his hand, benevolent as always.

“Come on,” Viktor says, getting to his feet and making his way over to the main console, Makka trotting after him. “Let’s find out what’s wrong.”

Yuuri Katsuki’s file is a study in normalcy. The swatches of his life coalesce into a story that would have brought Viktor to ennui if not for the fact that there’s something about Katsuki that pulls at him, has Viktor closely observing the way Katsuki’s eyes crinkle at the edges when he laughs, how his nose scrunches up in annoyance or amusement. In one life he’s a danseur, in another he’s a figure skater, and Viktor is hard-pressed to see what makes A-426 so different when a sort of hushed realization comes to him, a puzzle piece falling neatly into place.

The difference with A-426 is that in every other universe, Yuuri Katsuki is  _ happy _ .

In this one, he’s not.

“Do you want to make a new friend, Makka?”

 

 

**II**

 

Yuuri dreams of the color blue.

Not just any blue of course, because if it had been any other blue, then Yuuri would have captured it in film ages ago. No, this blue is the blue of a perfect, cloudless sky, the blue of the ocean before a storm. It’s a blue that chills him, a blue that warms him to the core, it’s a contradiction; it’s perfection.

It’s an idea, an emotion that Yuuri can’t describe without feeling as if he’d lost something he’s never had in the first place, has him feeling full and empty at the same time.

Any other person would abandon a search that feels like it’s been going on for an entire lifetime, find another hobby and get on with their lives. But Yuuri’s always been stubborn to a fault and already has camera in his hands, so he searches and searches for that perfect shade of blue even if it means he’ll spend forever searching.

The thing is, Yuuri grows up in a tiny, coastal town in the south of Japan. He grows up surrounded by the ocean and the sky, grows up in a town swallowed up by blue—he should want for nothing.

But Yuuri only knows discontent.

Because all he’s ever known is the wrong shade of blue; not the blue in his dreams and not the blue that he thinks will finally soothe the loss that festers inside his chest. So he leaves his tiny, coastal town, flies halfway across the world in search of the right shade of blue, and ends up in Detroit with a middling photography career, an empty gallery, and an even emptier heart.

 

.

 

Yuuri discovers the perfect shade of blue on a Thursday morning.

It’s a beautiful day, and Phichit has dragged him out of the darkness of his studio to get brunch at the fancy cafe a few blocks away from Yuuri’s apartment so they can both pretend that they have their lives put together. As if a couple of mimosas can erase the fact that Yuuri’s a disaster who still hasn’t found a model for the latest pet project he’s allowed Phichit to bully him into doing.

But Yuuri’s always been good at pretending that everything is fine and Stammi Vicino Café has an unlimited deal on cocktails, so Yuuri hunkers down and prepares to drink his weight in mimosas.

He’s halfway through his fourth one when someone comes up to their table and Yuuri looks up to see the most beautiful man in the world. And if not for Phichit jabbing him in the spleen, Yuuri would think that he’s having a fever dream. As it is, Yuuri can only stare and wonder why the most beautiful man in the world, who also happens to have the most beautiful pair of bright blue eyes, the perfect blue that Yuuri has been dreaming of for what feels like forever, is standing right in front of him.

“Excuse me,” he says, and  _ oh _ , who allowed this man to sound beautiful too? “Are you Yuuri Katsuki?”

It’s easy enough to say _yes_ , because he _is_ Yuuri Katsuki. But because Yuuri is a human disaster, he ends up at a loss for words, giving Phichit ample chance to make a nuisance of himself. “Yes,” Phichit answers, a terrible grin on his face that has Yuuri bracing himself for impact. “And he’s single and very much available—”

Slapping a hand over Phichit’s big fat mouth, Yuuri hastily babbles, “Hi, yeah, sorry, that’s me.” The man’s blue eyes seem to twinkle at that and Yuuri has to quickly down the rest of his mimosa before he asks, “What can I help you with?”

“I saw your flyer about how you’re looking for a model.” He says, holding up the said flyer and offering his hand which Yuuri takes gingerly. “I’m Viktor. I just recently moved here and I’m still waiting on a—” Pausing, Viktor lets out a self-deprecating laugh that makes him look endearingly boyish. “Sorry, I’m babbling, you’re probably not interested in that.” On the contrary, Yuuri is very much interested in having Viktor keep doing whatever it is he’s doing. “Anyway, are you still looking for one?”

“Are you okay with modeling in the nude?” Phichit asks before Yuuri can unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Because Yuuri needs to take nudes. Lots of ‘em.”

Yuuri’s going to kill his best friend, see if he doesn’t. “Phichit!” He hisses, a flush burning on his cheeks. “It’s really fine if you’re not—”

“It’s alright,” Viktor says with a shrug that emphasizes the breadth of his shoulders. “I don’t mind posing naked.”

 

.

 

Which is how Yuuri ends up with Viktor, surname unknown, sprawled naked all over his freshly-laundered sheets, looking, for all intents and purposes, as if he belongs there. Which, of course, is the idea. Yuuri’s project is called  _ Intimité _ for a reason and it would be stupid if Viktor looked out of place. Still, the sight has Yuuri pausing with every shot he takes, the sound of the shutter hiding the way his breath stutters inside his chest.  

“Does this make you happy?” Viktor asks while Yuuri’s adjusting the light and instructing Viktor to  _ look up at me through your eyelashes, yes, just like that. _

“Huh?” Yuuri startles, looking up from the viewfinder to see Viktor’s bright blue eyes boring into him.

“This,” Viktor says, and for a minute, Yuuri thinks that he’d been too obvious about just how much Viktor affects him, but Viktor continues, motioning at the camera. “Photography. Your life.”

It’s a strangely philosophical question for someone who was just asking Yuuri about his opinion on pop tart flavors earlier, but Viktor is strange and Yuuri guesses that strange questions are par for the course. “Why are you asking?”

“Just making small talk,” he says, in a tone that implies that it’s anything but. “So? Are you happy?”

To be completely honest? Yuuri has no idea. But he’s getting there, he thinks. “I guess?”

A furrow forms between Viktor’s eyebrows when he says it, and Yuuri tamps down on the urge to smooth the line down with his thumb as Viktor asks, “What would make you happy?”

_ A kiss _ , Yuuri thinks idly, mapping the subtle curve of Viktor’s lower lip, before banishing the thought away with a shake of his head. “I guess it would really make my day,” he begins, turning back to the viewfinder. _ “ _ _ If you stopped moving around so much _ .”

 

 

**III**

 

The thing about falling in love is that it happens differently for everyone. Some people fall in love like it’s no big deal. Like it’s a natural phenomenon as easy as breathing. Some people fight against it every step of the way. Like love is a chore, a battle they’re trying to win, as if falling into it leads to ruin.

Yuuri falls in increments. With every click and every flash, with every shutter sound that reaches his ears. He falls for Viktor, who appears out of nowhere and settles into Yuuri’s life as if he’s always been there, as if there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. Viktor, who seems oddly concerned about his happiness.

 

.

 

Yuuri’s not gonna be getting any usable shots from this shoot and it’s all Viktor’s fault. Not that he minds all that much, not when Viktor is sucking yet another bruise at his neck, long fingers tracing over where Yuuri is still sore and tender, occasionally dipping in and making Yuuri gasp as he feels his gaping hole twitch, as if trying to suck Viktor’s teasing fingers in.

“Are you happy?” Viktor asks, just as he slides two fingers in, right to the knuckles, and Yuuri chokes on a gasp.

Fingers grappling for purchase on Viktor’s slick shoulders, Yuuri hisses, “Why do you keep asking me that?” His voice shakes, and every part of him wants to stop talking and just feel, but Viktor’s been asking him if he’s happy almost obsessively and Yuuri wants to know  _ why _ . “Why do you care if I’m happy or not?”

“Because you’re important to me.” It should sound like a stupid line, especially when Viktor says it as he’s putting on a condom and tugging at Yuuri’s hips so that the head of Viktor’s cock just kisses his hole, and yet it doesn’t. There’s something about the way Viktor says the words now that rings true.

“We just met a week and a half ago.”

“And yet here we are,” Viktor says with a grin that has Yuuri’s heart falling ass over teakettle.

“Sex and love are—” Yuuri cuts himself off with a broken moan as Viktor slides in, massive and perfect, and  _ oh god _ , he’ll be feeling Viktor for days.

Rolling his hips in a way that has Yuuri moaning and seeing stars, Viktor leans in for a filthy kiss. “Sex and love are what?” He asks, lips twisting in a teasing grin that douses the fire already burning in Yuuri’s belly with gasoline and Yuuri snaps—pushes Viktor onto his back and slides back down with a punched-out moan.

“Viktor,  _ shut up _ .”

 

.

 

Viktor falls slowly, and then all at once. Like a cup left underneath a leaky faucet overnight, filling up steadily, slowly, until a drop turns into something more and it finally spills and overflows. Viktor falls for Yuuri like it’s an inevitability, as if loving him is the greatest thing he’ll ever do, the only thing he was meant to do.

Viktor falls and the universe grows brighter, the rift closes up, and for a single, perfect moment,  _ all is right in the world _ .

 

 

**IV**

 

“ _ Vitya _ ? ”

Someone calls from behind him and a tiny part of Viktor wants to stop and turn around. But he’s already running late for Yuuri’s gallery opening, waylaid by a sudden downpour, and it’s not as if his name is—

“Vitya!”

A hand on his arm almost startles Viktor into dropping the bouquet of blue roses he holds in his hands, and he stops and turns to see a beautiful woman with long, silvery hair, the same color as his own, and although she isn’t smiling now, Viktor  _ knows _ with a bone-deep certainty that she has a heart shaped smile.

“I’m not—” Viktor falters, the rush of blood loud in his ears as he stares at the woman’s painfully familiar face. She’s the woman in his dreams—the one he’d always thought of as his mother, he’s sure of it. “My name is Viktor,” he says shakily, an insistent throb forming at the back of his head the longer the woman talks.

“Yes, you’re—”

He doesn’t find out what or who he’s supposed to be as another woman appears, this time with dark hair and a voice that Viktor has only ever heard singing a lullaby. “Katya, what are you doing?”

“Vika,” the woman—Katya—says, turning to her companion with wide, grey eyes before looking back at Viktor. “Vika, look at him,” she says, before continuing in a language that Viktor doesn’t understand, tone taking on a desperate edge. “Vika,  пожалуйста .”

Vika turns to him then with bright, blue eyes that immediately go dim, and she averts her gaze quickly, as if looking at Viktor for too long pains her. “Forgive us. My wife mistook you for someone else.” As soon as she says the words, she’s dragging a tearful Katya away, leaving Viktor feeling as if they’d taken a part of him along with them.

It’s enough to leave Viktor reeling and out of sorts, shaken to his very core, so that when a bright flash goes off in the alleyway he’s in, the bouquet finally falls from his hands and the air explodes with the scent of roses. Viktor can only watch in horrified silence as a booted foot crushes the perfect blooms he’d painstakingly picked out.

The last time Viktor had seen Yuri, the boy was still in the middle of training, now here he was, suited up and pointing a phaser at Viktor’s head.

“Agent V-125, you’re under arrest for violating the Agency’s statutes and laws,” Yuri barks out with a triumphant grin, the words punctuated with the hum of a phaser charging. “Get down on your knees.”

Viktor scoffs. “Get down on my knees? That’s pretty overkill, don’t you think?” Yuri came alone, and even with a phaser in his hands, Viktor’s pretty sure he can take him on. Especially if he gets Yuri throwing a hissy fit. “Or is that because you’re too short? Gotta resort to dumb tricks because you know you’ll never be better than me.”

“You fucking bastard—”

“Look, I’ll go with you after I attend this gallery opening,” Viktor says, easily cutting Yuri off with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “And you can tell the Agency that you arrested the person who single-handedly fixed the rift.”

“You interfered! We’re not supposed to interfere!” Yuuri hisses, face twisting into an ugly sneer. “Also, fuck you. You didn’t come here to fix the rift. You came here to fuck some pathetic loser—”

Viktor’s fist meets Yuri’s face with a satisfyingly sickening crunch, and he has a few seconds of gratification before his vision goes black.

 

.

 

_ The number you dialed is either unattended or out of coverage area, please try again later— _

“Yuuri?” Phichit’s head peeks out of the doorway, concern writ clearly on his face. “We have to start the show soon.” They’ve already had to delay it for ten minutes, and Yuuri knows that if they push it any further, they’re going to start losing potential clients and buyers.

Pressing the call button one last time, Yuuri gives Phichit a nod and a tight smile. “Just give me another minute and I’ll be right inside.”

“Maybe he’s just stuck in traffic?” Phichit says. “It did rain pretty hard.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

_ The number you dialed-- _

.

 

And just like that, the universe shudders and _breaks_ _apart_.

 

 

**V**

 

Viktor comes to with a pounding headache and a metallic taste in his mouth, inside one of the maximum security holding cells. He’s back in the facility, and he’s left Yuuri all alone, with not even a single  _ goodbye. _

On his right, Viktor sees Yuri standing in front of his cell, wearing a black eye and a broken nose. “How’s the nose?” He calls out, sitting up on the cot and grinning when Yuri scowls before visibly wincing.

His feeling of triumph is short-lived as Yuri snipes back, “Congrats, the rift is opening again and you fixed absolutely nothing.”

“What?” Viktor’s stomach drops, followed by his heart as he scrambles to his feet. He practically runs towards Yuri, palms pressed flat against the thick glass. “It was closed when I last checked,” he says, insists, because he’s monitored the rift religiously, watched it grow smaller and smaller with each day he spent with Yuuri.

Yuri shrugs. “Must have messed up while you were getting your dick wet.”  

Before Viktor can do anything stupid like break his hand, Chris saunters in. “Yuri,” he begins, never once looking at Viktor. “Yakov’s calling for you.”

“Whatever. Don’t let him out.”  

As soon as the doors close behind Yuri, Chris makes his way to Viktor’s cell with an exasperated look on his face. “When I said you should bend the rules a bit, I didn’t mean for you to set them on fire and dance naked by their ashes,” Chris says, as if he hasn’t done the same.  

“Is it true?” Viktor asks, ignoring the teasing glint in Chris’ eyes, instead focusing on Yuri’s words. “Is the rift open again?”

With a faint grimace, Chris deflates. “Unfortunately.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Viktor ran the tests himself, checked and triple-checked the results, and the rift should be completely nonexistent. “I fixed it, I know I did.” He made Yuuri happy, he knows he did, just as Yuuri made  _ him _ happy.

“You did,” Chris allows with a small nod, startling Viktor from the flurry of his thoughts. “But it started again the moment Yuri brought you back.”

Which doesn’t make sense, unless it’s not Yuuri’s happiness that’s constant but—

“Christophe, leave us,” one of the Entity that makes up the Agency says, appearing out of thin air, as if they’ve always been there in the room. Viktor’s yet to figure out what kind of trick they use, and he probably won’t be figuring it out any time soon as the Entity phases through the glass and into the holding cell, settling down neatly on the cot.

He’s only distantly aware of Chris leaving, too busy watching the Entity with narrowed eyes as his mind races, going down the path that his encounter with Katya and Vika had opened up, and which Chris had only confirmed.

“From the look on your face,” the Entity starts with a pleased hum that has the hairs on the back of Viktor’s neck standing up. “You’ve figured it all out.”

“It’s me,” Viktor says, finally giving voice to the idea that he’d long dismissed. Because it had felt like wishful thinking on his part; love addling his brain and making him believe that he belongs with Yuuri. “That’s my universe and you took me away from it. That’s why there’s a rift.”

The Entity nods, or at least, performs an approximation of it. “We took you away from your universe because we thought you had a better calling,” they say, waving a hand that makes the holding cell melt away, and they’re transported to one of the viewing bays that offers an unhindered view of the newly-opened ift. “It seems, however, that we were mistaken. For in every universe, you were meant to be at Yuuri Katsuki’s side. Taking you away from  _ your Yuuri Katsuki _ has left everything in shambles, hence the Agency is releasing you from service.”

Viktor blinks, once, twice, mouth falling open. “You’re letting me go?” He asks, incredulity coloring his tone. “That’s it?”

“We are not omnipotent. Mistakes were made and must be corrected,” the Entity says, before adding with an amused huff, “So much to young Yuri’s disappointment, yes, we are, in fact, letting you go.”  

 

 

**VI**

 

_ The number you dialed is either unattended or out of coverage area, please try again later— _

“Yuuri?” Phichit’s head peeks out of the doorway, face carefully devoid of emotion, and Yuuri sighs, because he already knows what his best friend is going to say. They’ve already had to push the start time a bit because of some issues with catering, and Yuuri knows that they can’t waste any more time, but Yuuri  _ needs _ Viktor to be here,  _ needs _ Viktor to see.

“I know we’re running late, but just give me a second, okay?” Yuuri asks, pleads, as he presses the call button again. “I’m gonna call Viktor one last time and then we can start.”

“Yeah, about that,” Phichit hums, and there’s something about the way he does it that has Yuuri looking up to see Phichit grinning widely. “Lover boy’s here.”

Yuuri’s off like a shot before he knows it, Phichit’s laughter nipping at his heels as he runs inside the gallery and collides with—

“ _ Viktor _ _ ,” _ he gasps, arms already wrapping around Viktor and leaning in for a hungry kiss that Viktor gives him with a delighted laugh. “You’re  _ here _ . ”

“Of course.” Pulling away with a smile that fills Yuuri up with warmth, Viktor says, “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

 

 

**VII**

 

“Hey, Viktor?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you happy?”

“When I’m with you? Always.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> yes hello loving yuuri is the greatest thing viktor will ever do send tweet


End file.
